Not Just "Great", but HUGE

The game of 8x8x8 3D Chess has 512 "squares" on its board, more than
any form of Great Chess. This got me thinking about two-dimensional
games of Chess on a Really Big Board.

The Rules of N-Board Chess

The well-known rules of FIDE Chess apply, except as specified
below.

The game is played on a larger board than the normal 8x8, but
the board requires no special equipment because you can simply push
several chessboards together into a square or a rectangle or a
hollow square or a line or whatever shape you wish. For example, a
16x16 board is constructed by pushing four standard chessboards
together in a 2x2 square of boards.

Although the edges of the 8x8 boards have no effect on the play,
(the 16x16 game is simply a 16x16 board and there is nothing special
about crossing from one 8x8 area to another),
the notation for moves pays attention to these boundaries. For
example, in Sixty-Four Board Chess (a chessboard of chessboards!),
the longest possible Bishop move is Ba1.a1-h8.h8, "the Bishop moves
from board a1 square a1 to board h8 square h8".

An unmoved Pawn can advance
either one step, or all the way up to the midline of the board, or
anything in between. On a single 8x8 board, this is exactly like
FIDE Chess; the rule has simply been rephrased to generalize it.

An unmoved Pawn that makes a long move can be captured en
passant (by an enemy Pawn, of course) as though it had made any
of the possible shorter moves. Once again, this is merely a
generalization of the normal rule.

Pawn promotion occurs at the last rank, just as in FIDE Chess.

Castling is the same as in FIDE Chess, except that the King
moves further. (The Rook, or whatever piece starts in the corner,
moves the same distance as in FIDE Chess.)

When distances are doubled, the "fifty move rule" must be at least
doubled.

Because the board is larger, the lineup of pieces may be
different than in FIDE Chess. The exact lineup is part of the
description of any specific game.

About the Rule of Pawns

If Pawns can only start with a single or double step, it takes a lot
of time to make contact. Each side develops its own pieces without
being bothered by the other side, and then starts slowly moving
forward. When at last contact is made, both sides will have had
plenty of time to prepare, and therefore games between master-level
players will presumably be drawn much more often than they are in
FIDE Chess. However, differences in skill during the long
non-contact phase should reap rich rewards during the brisk
struggles that ensue after contact; this is a good rule for Pawns,
but it is not the rule that I have chosen.

The rule I have chosen is to allow unmoved Pawns to advance anywhere
up to the midline. This is exactly what happens in FIDE chess, it is
simply a matter of how the rule is phrased.

In Four Board Chess after 1. b1.a2-b1.a8, "the King's Pawn advances
to the midline", in other words the equivalent of 1. e2-e4 in FIDE
chess, the Pawn on b1.a8 appears to be dangerously isolated. Of
course, another Pawn can zoom up to defend it, but then this small
detachment of Pawns is isolated: the minor pieces can't reach the
area for several moves. Advanced Pawns are not so great if you don't
control the territory behind them.

I like this rule because of the strategic tension it introduces:
you want to go faster and use the longest Pawn move, hoping to gain
space and get an attack going, but by doing so you may weaken your
position quite a bit.

About the Notation

Chessplayers are used to "a1 to h8", and most chessplayers can read
moves in this range and follow them (at least vaguely) blindfold.
To understand a move such as "o17-p19" takes more mental effort.

Although "Na1.g7-b2.a1" may take a bit of thought to decode, it
still seems easier than the alternatives.

Furthermore, on boards larger than 24x24 there are not enough
letters in the alphabet to permit the use of the usual notation.

Some Odd Four Board Games.

Four boards in a 2x2 square makes a 16x16 board.

One Set, Four Boards

Suppose that each player just uses one normal chess set with the
normal arrangement of pieces, but White starts with the Queen on a1.h4,
Black starts with the Q on a2.h5.

Seems like a silly idea, but the small number of pieces means that
the game won't take so many moves, and the position of the Kings
means that they will never be safe -- and so there will be many
short games with exciting attacks.

64 Pieces, Four Boards

A more chesslike proportion of pieces would be to have 4 chess-sets'
worth of pieces for the four boards. If you tried to develop all
your pieces before attacking, the "opening" phase of the game would
last 40 or so moves.

In fact, you could use a totally-chess setup. Each player starts the
game with 16 doubled Pawns and four repetitions of the normal setup.
There are too many Kings, of course, and each player already has
doubled Rooks in the center; so this is not a perfectly pleasing
setup. Even so, it's interesting to consider this opening position
and imagine what it must be like to play such a game.

A more reasonable setup might be to have a front row of Pawns, fill
the third rank with really weak pieces, put the King in the center
on the second rank, fill in the rest with other pieces.

This presents the player with an interesting problem of
coordination. In order to get a safe King position, you need to
choose one side, keep the Pawns on the fourth rank, get the King
over there, bring some of the weaker pieces back from the third rank
to cover; and you need to do this without spending too many moves.

I haven't filled in all the details of this game because although I
think it is probably playable, the huge mass of pieces seems too
heavy for my taste.

Four Board Chess

Four boards in a 2x2 square makes a 16x16 board.

Think about this board for a moment. It's quite impossible that a
game played on this could be Chess with a capital C, don't you
think? But of course we can have a nice game that is a chess variant
and is interesting to play; the game I will present is fairly much like
Chess, subject to other design constraints.

Think about this board for a moment. How large it is! It must take
quite a few moves to play a game on this board, and if it is a very
tactical game I think I would get a headache from having to think so
hard for so many moves; and so I want this game to be a bit more
strategical and less tactically intense than FIDE Chess.

The "Rose" is a circular Knightrider (example: from e1 to g1 and if
g2 is empty continue to h4, g6, e7, c6, b4, c2, e1) which cannot use
its whole move on any board smaller that 13x13; because this board
is even bigger, I want to put this piece on it!

The 'aAWFA4' makes alternating (outwards, of course) W and F moves
up to a length of 4: from e1 to e2 and if e2 was empty may stop or
continue to f3, so on f4 and g5; now has taken 4 steps and can go no
further. All the F moves must be in the same direction as each
other, all the W moves must also.

The pieces are
R, N, FD, WFA, B, Rose, NB, Q, K, RN, NLJ, B, WFA, FD, N, R; the
Rose is represented by a circle (the letter O), the RN is the
Chancellor (letter C), the NB is tha Archbishop (letter A), and I
have chosen semi-random other letters for the remaining pieces.

The Rook, Knight, Bishop, King, and Queen appear in their usual
order, but a few new pieces are insterted.

The FD jumps of (0,2) or (1,1); the WFA moves like a King or jumps
to (2,2); the NB is Knight plus Bishop, known as the Archbishop; and
the RN is the Rook plus Knight, known as the Chancellor.

The SuperKnight NLJ is the Knight (1,2) plus the long Knight (1,3)
plus the long, wide Knight (2,3). You can't have this piece on an
8x8 board because it's too long and can threaten multiple mates with
its first move, so the NLJ seems good for the 16x16 board.

The NLJ is obviously destined for use as an attacking piece. On the
8x8 board, it would be at least as strong as the Queen even before
taking into account its ability to crush the opening. On the 16x16
board, who can say?

This lineup contains a very basic and logical selection of the
fundamental geometrical moves, except for my idiosyncratic
insistence on including the Rose in the lineup of pieces. These are
largely the basic units of Chess, and anybody who designs a 16x16
game with 32 pieces is bound to come up with something reasonably
similar, at least if they want it to be like Chess but a bit less
tactical.

Although the Rose is a powerful piece, it contributes to the feeling of
spaciousness because its farthest reach is only half the board.

Meanwhile, the relatively uncrowded starting position causes the
long-range pieces to have more mobility than they normally do in
FIDE Chess. Bishops attacking from miles away; seems like a charming
feature of 16x16 games.

The Weak Pieces Are the Most Important

In this game, you would never trade a Bishop for a Knight; but if
the Knight is defending an area where you want to attack, you might
be willing to sacrifice a Bishop for a Knight.

Each player has 7 long-range pieces, 2 mid-range pieces, and 6
short-range pieces. In such an open position, it may be rather
difficult for the long pieces to do much by themselves; in order for
an attack to succeed, most often you nust either sacrifice something
or bring up a short-range Pawn or a short-range piece to help.

In fact, because it takes the weaker pieces so long to get from one
part of the board to another, their wise use will be the deciding
factor in most games.

The Starting Lineup

Perhaps it is possible to have a better choice of pieces in the game
Without greatly changing the promising characteristics of the game.

The lineup presented above was my fourth try.

Originally, I had the WA instead of the WFA; this created a pleasing
symmetry because the WA and FD together combine the 4 basic
non-Knight geometires in two complementary pieces, but it wasn't
quite right.

Changing it to a WFA made it possible to have all the Pawns
initially defended, and added a new level of
value to the game -- the WFA is worth more than the N or FD, less
than the NLJ, perhaps as much as the B but not quite.
The difficulty of exchanging unlike pieces for equal value adds
spice to the game.

I avoided putting the B at c1 because b2 seems like such a perfect
square for it; I wanted you to work harder. I first put the B at d1
but once that the WFA replaced the WA, it seemed like more fun to
put the B at e1. This gives you two black-squared colorbound pieces
on the left side and two white-squared colorbound pieces on the
left; experience has shown that this is more interesting than a
balanced setup.

I also made things inconvenient in other ways: c3 is wanted for the
development of both the N and the FD, and moving the center Pawns
does not open the way for the Bishops.

What about the arrangement of Rose, NB, Q, RN, and NLJ? My choice is
fairly random but I see no real reason why some other arrangement
might be better. (I've thought about it...)

It seems logical to have Q on one color and NB on the other.

Observations About Four Board Chess

This game is designed for face-to-face play between players of
at least moderate skill.

If its design has been successful, you will find that this game is
somewhat less tactical than FIDE Chess. As a result, you should need
to do less calculating and should be able to move more quickly (and
therefore the elapsed time and the total mental effort required to
play a game might not be much more than FIDE Chess).

Sample Game of Four Board Chess

White's attack is my favorite opening for sample games. Here it
might even be a good move because it exerts long-range pressure on
the center and is not easy to drive away.

Black defends and develops with ease, and now White has no more
immediate attacks. Neither side wants to trade Pawns and lose a
tempo, but White can't afford to let the RN sit on b1.b1 forever.

White could aim to attack the undefended Pawn at a2.h2 by moving the
Pawn away from a1.d2 and following with Ba1.e1-a1.b4; this doesn't
look dangerous. White could try to attack the nQa2.h3 by moving the
P from b1.e2 and then Bb1.d1-b1.g4; again unconvincing.

Because the minor pieces take a while to reach the scene, the battle
is less tactically intense than FIDE Chess.

White's threat to put the Rook on the a1.h1 file is quite disturbing;
Black chases the Q simply because b2.f3 is potentially defended by
the qN or the b2.e7 Pawn, while Black's own Q covers b2.f2 and can
follow up by going there. (That is, the NB isn't out on a limb but
is going to a place where other pieces can cooperate with it.)

8. Qb2.h2-b1.d6 (NB)b2.f3-b1.c8
9. Qb1.d6-b1.g3 Qa2.h8-b2.d4

White's 8th move attacks Black's King-Pawn another time, but Black's
reply attacks the WQ and while defending the Pawn; then if
9. Qb1.d6-b1.c7, (NB)b1.c8-b2.d1 seems to win a Pawn.

About The Sample Game

Less tactically intense? Yes, I think; but if you insist on getting
into an immediate fight, you can.

In the sample, I insisted on an instant fight, and there was one;
but there were fairly few pieces involved, they had room to run
away, and the variations that I saw weren't very long or deep
(perhaps the things I missed were? More likely they were obvious.)

Did I miss obvious things? Of course. It's a big new chessboard and
there's lots of room on it for errors.

Nine Board Chess

Push 9 boards together in a 3x3 square, symmetrically replicate all
the unique pieces from the Four Board Chess lineup, add a W beside
the K, two Fs flanking the K ans W, and you have a game.

The choice of the W and F is based on the fact that we have just
replicated the strongest pieces from Four Board Chess, and so it
seems logical to balance things by adding some really weak pieces.

Their placement is based on the fact that they are useful defensive
pieces. If you Castle, you must leave them far behind; if their
presence in the center tempts you to keep your King there and get
checkmated, that just adds to the fun.

This is probably the biggest game that anybody would ever really
think of actually playing.

Sixty-Four Board Chess

A chessboard of chessboards! You must use very small chessboards and
sets, and you must have very long arms. You must also have a long
time to play!

I can enjoy this game more by just thinking about it than I could by
actually trying to play it...

Four Board Chess with Different Armies

(Four Board Chess is the only fully-designed N-board game, and so I
am using it as the example; you can generalize the following.)

The values of pieces on larger boards have not been studied well
enough to allow me to suggest equivalents for the long range pieces
in this game.

However, it would certainly be possible for the players to have
different short-range pieces; for example, if one player has a pair
of N and the other player has a pair of fbNF, it should be an even
game.

Four Board Chess Variants

Taking the above rules as a basis, you could apply the rules of any
chess variant and have a game.

It would seem silly to apply rules that make the board seem bigger,
such as Cylindrical Chess.

It would seem logical to apply rules that make the game shorter,
such as Avalanche Chess.

Perhaps the most logical variant would be Viennese Kriegspiel,
a variant in which you set up a screen along the midline, each
player makes as many moves as desired, you remove the screen and
start playing. For Four Board Viennese Kriegspiel, I'd forbid
moving beyond the sixth rank.

Four Board Viennese Kriegspiel makes the game shorter by
allowing you to develop your pieces without waiting for the other
player to move, but it removes the skill of reacting wisely to what
the other player is doing, and it destroys the careful though I put
into the initial setup of pieces.

Four Board Sighted Viennese Kriegspiel is Viennese Kriegspiel
without the screen. You see what your opponent is doing, and can
rearrange your pieces, but you both play the opening moves without
waiting for each other to move, or worrying about who makes more
moves than the other. Use a time limit to prevent infinite
rearrangement.

Four Board Sighted Viennese Kriegspiel is basically how they
used to start the game in Shatranj. Perhaps the retronym "Sighted
Viennese Kriegspiel" is a neologism.

Perhaps the best set of variant rules to use on this big board is
Momentum Chess; but I plan a special and separate article on a
big-board form of Momentum Chess, with the board size, setup, and
all rules specially crafted to make a perfect game.

Four Board Shatranj

In order to have a game that is even less tactical, one could
eliminate the strongest pieces. Replace the Bishops with Alfils,
replace the Queen with a Ferz, use a NA instead of the Archbishop,
and, oh, something or other instead of the Chancellor. How about an
RA or RF?

Now the RA or RF, the Rose, and the NLJ are the strongest pieces.

This is probably fun to play if you like Shatranj (I like Shatranj).

Four Board Momentum Shatranj is guaranteed to be a great
game, suitable for email play.

Coming Soon: Four Board Great Chess

Four Board Chess is rather chesslike. There are several pieces other
than the Rose that need big boards, but I have not used them.

Four Board Great Chess should have a row of Pawns on the third rank,
and roughly 24 pieces in the two rows behind them (you have some
empty spaces in the starting position).

It would be easy to put together a bunch of pieces meeting this
description, but to make a well-designed Four Board Great Chess is
another story: that requires quite a bit of effort.

Comments

You've just got to love a variant that's really big, even if you don't want to play it much. Now that there's a rules-enforcing preset courtesy of Nick, the chance of playing game(s) of it went up for me.

Four Board Chess

This variant contains a number of unusual pieces, amongst which the Rose, which can only reach its full move potential on very large boards such as this. I invented the names of the other unorthodox pieces myself, to correspond with the 'random letters' that Betza originally assigned to them.

In the section "One Set, Four Boards" the author wrote "Seems like a silly idea, but the small number of pieces means that the game won't take so many moves, and the position of the Kings means that they will never be safe -- and so there will be many short games with exciting attacks.".

The king will never be safe? The king is next to some strong pieces that can defend him. He's next to a queen, and other pieces can easily move into positions to defend from all directions.

If the opponent tries to attack from the flanks or the rear, it seems to me that the king can be defended faster than the opponent can send new attackers. With good play I don't see how games will be shorter than normal chess. And at the endgame, putting the king in checkmate would take longer because pushing him to a corner will take more moves.

So I don't think games will be shorter with exciting attacks. Well-played games will be slower with fewer and less-interesting attacks. Please let me know if I'm missing something. And has anyone played this?

Betza has only a couple other CVs not on 64 squares. Chess on a Really Big Board is half for the satire. Still surprisingly for so creative an inventor, Betza's mindset did not break out of 64-square mold, as this one too is just 64 times 4.